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Huckaby: Across the world, meanness rules

I miss my mama but, in a way, I am glad she’s not here to see what has become of our planet. It would make her so sad. Fifty years ago she would wring her hands and bemoan the fact that “there’s just too much meanness in the world.” My mama could never have imagined, in her wildest dreams, what we would be experiencing in 2017. Not in her wildest dreams.

I was horrified last week when I learned that there had been yet another terrorist attack in London. A young lady that’s almost like my own is spending the summer there and my thoughts went immediately to her. I realize that London is a very large city and that the odds against Reynolds Rogers being near the site of the terror were slim, but that didn’t stop me from having some anxious moments until I heard from her father that she was safe and sound. Even at that, some hooligan had stolen her purse that very night. Meanness. Just too much meanness in the world.

And this week we’ve not been able to keep up with all the mayhem. The vitriol and rancor that accompanied the 2016 presidential election has intensified exponentially since Donald Trump was inaugurated in January as our nation’s 45th president. I don’t care which side of the political aisle your biscuit is buttered on, longstanding rules of decorum and plain common decency dictate that you don’t say and do the things that have been said about and done to the Trump family over the past six months.

It is not healthy political discourse. It is pure unadulterated meanness. When a D-list comedian displays a bleeding head of the President of the United States and is applauded by a certain faction of the American public, we have just about reached the tipping point in this country. The inflammatory rhetoric that has permeated our society exploded in violence this week as a disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporter opened fire at a Congressional softball outing – reportedly targeting Republican politicians. Admittedly, this was an isolated incident and most likely the actions of a deranged individual, but it is still symptomatic of what we are becoming –— a world full of meanness.

We have been given the gift of instant communication on the worldwide web and we are abusing the gift by using it to spread hate and anger. When I look back on some of my own social media posts I know that I, myself, am guilty of many inflammatory remarks, all issued, of course, with great piety and righteous indignation. I think it was it Gandhi that said “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” I am afraid we are, indeed, in danger of losing our vision.

And right here at home we all watched in horror this week as we learned that two criminals had overpowered and murdered two correctional officers in our own back yards. At the time this column was written, the killers were still at large and people all across the North Georgia Piedmont were taking cover behind locked doors as report after report after report of where the fugitives might be spread across the internet like wildfire. In my own community, there were blue lights and sirens and roadblocks for two days, fueling wild speculation about what was happening where.

Every day, all across the nation, people are being killed in cold blood, for no reason. There are gangs and rumors of gangs in communities where 10 years ago people didn’t even lock their doors at night, or when they left the house. I’m not being overly dramatic here. It is just the plain truth, although I am afraid that we may not be able to handle the truth.

Humanity has lost a great degree of her self-respect and sense of right and wrong. We have turned from God and are worshipping all manner of false idols and for a growing number of people there is no respect for personal property or even human life.

There is just too much meanness in the world and I honestly don’t know how we got to this point. But I know that if we don’t turn things around that we are collectively presiding over the decline of civilization.

I wish I could offer a solution to our problem, but I am afraid that, to quote another great philosopher, Bob Dylan, “the answer my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.”

But the wind had better change directions, and fast, or we’re all in big trouble.